Wish you all a very Happy New Year!! Time is flying and I realized that it’s going to be almost a month since I posted. As I said in my last post, I am cooking the OPOS way these days. The most recent has been carrot poriyal or stir fry. I can read your thoughts right now..’You blog after a month and it’s about carrot poriyal? As though it’s a very hard recipe to cook!’. Well, just hear me out. I had almost two pounds of carrots sitting in the fridge, waiting to be put to use. I came home from work one day and peeled and grated those two pounds. Grating seemed easier than cutting. Mr.S is a big fan of carrot poriyal and Ms.T follows suit sans the spice. So, divided up the batch into two and set to work. Now, if I were to make it in a wok or a kadai, it would have taken atleast 20 mins for each batch.

Using OPOS, it took just 5 mins for each batch. Just 5 mins. And I used dry grated coconut instead of frozen grated coconut. With OPOS, dry coconut tasted just fine. A big time saver if you ask me. I always found it a pain to thaw out the frozen coconut so I can break a small bit from the big rectangular pancake.

On to the recipe now:

OPOS Carrot Poriyal:

In a 2L standardized pressure cooker, layer the ingredients as follows:

L1: 1 tsp oil

L2: 3 tbsp water

L3: About a pound of grated carrots

L4: 6 to 7 Green Chillies (chopped)

L5: 3 tbsp of dry shredded unsweetened coconut

L6: About a tablespoon of water on top of the dry coconut, just to give it some moisture and some salt.

Were you wondering where I was all these days? I was busy learning a new technique in cooking. I was immersed in whipping up dishes at a minute’s notice that I didn’t realize it’s been a few weeks since I posted on this space.

So, what happened during this time? We had our first snow. Little T was so tired to go to Taekwando classes that we decided to give her a break. So no more arguments, planning and coaxing to make her go.

Note that this can be achieved only by a whistling stove atop pressure cooker and not by Instant Pot. I own and use Instant Pots but caramelization can be perfected only on a stove top whistling pressure cooker.

On nutrition and health benefits, Mr.Ramakrishnan says“#Cook_Free : The OPOS way of cooking food

OPOS seeks to maximise colour, texture, flavour and nutrition.Here’s how we do it:

Starches:OPOS advocates cooking starches by absorption, with little or no water. It is a myth that starches should be cooked with excess water, which should then be drained away. This method just wastes water, fuel and food. In OPOS, we follow the absorption method to cook most starches like rice, noodles & pasta to ensure texture is maintained. Overcooking starches, with excess water makes them mushy. They are no less nutritious when mushy, but not very appealing to see or taste. Starches cooked with no added water have the maximum flavour and texture. OPOS No water biriyanis & No water pasta made possible gourmet level dishes not easily achievable with conventional cooking methods.

Animal protein:OPOS advocates cooking meat at high heat for a short time, with little or no water. This promotes caramelisation and ensures meats remain juicy. Marination is used to tenderise tough meats instead of increased cooking time.

Vegetable protein (Dals):OPOS advocates extended high heat cooking of dals to make them more nutritious. Anti nutrients like phytic acid or toxins like lectin (especially in kidney beans) are used by plants to discourage animals from eating their seeds. The high heat, prolonged cooking denatures these toxins. Extended, high heat cooking has little or no effect on their nutrients.

OPOS advocates using precooked (refrigerated/ frozen) dal to prevent overcooking of vegetables dal & vegetables are cooked together. There is no appreciable nutrition loss when dal is refrigerated/ frozen.

Micro nutrients (Vegetables)OPOS advocates the high heat, no water, minimal cooking of almost all vegetables. Cooking breaks down cell walls and fibers, allowing our body to absorb their nutrients. Overcooking reduces most vegetables to a colourless, tasteless, flavourless mush. Cooking vegetables with water leaches out their nutrients. Pressure does not have an appreciable effect on micro nutrients. Only heat does. It is important to note that the duration of heat matters more than the intensity of heat. Slow & low heat cooking destroys micro nutrients. Short, high heat cooking ensures most of them are retained. The colour of cooked vegetables is a reliable indicator of the level of micro nutrients retained.

Spinach:OPOS advocates cooking spinach just like any other vegetable. The myth that spinach has ‘volatile acids’ that need to be cooked out has been busted.

Most OPOS recipes are built on this core cooking method.

Tomatoes:OPOS advocates using whole tomatoes/ deseeded tomatoes to ensure caramelisation.Tomato puree/ chopped tomatoes are almost never used as they leak water and prevent complex flavours from developing.

Spices:OPOS advocates use of roasted and ground spices, cooked ginger- garlic paste, caramelised onions & tomatoes for maximum flavour. As sealed cooking intensifies flavours, we use less than half the quantity of spices and salt as compared to the traditional versions.

Oil:OPOS advocates use of little or no oil in most dishes. Instead we use bottled tadka to infuse flavour & emulsification to ensure creaminess. OPOS advocates bottled tadka to increase flavour, cut down mess, oil consumption, time and labour.

Sugar:OPOS advocates controlled evaporation of sugar to precisely control the consistency of sugar syrup.

Yogurt/ Coconut milkOPOS advocates minimal/ no cooking of yogurt/ coconut milk. These are usually mixed in after opening and left to cook in retained heat, to minimise curdling.

Using Masalas:

Traditional cooking places enormous emphasis on the right amount of oil, the right tadka, the right combination of spices, the right order of adding them, the right way to grind them and the right amount of cooking them.

In traditional cooking, vegetables get overcooked, lose their flavour, colour, taste and texture. This loss needs to be compensated by the masala. This masala needs to be different for different dishes. Otherwise everything would taste the same.So you have a different recipe for drumstick sambar, a different recipe for brinjal sambar and so on.We bypass most of these steps in OPOS. In OPOS, we rely on enhancing the inherent taste of vegetables. The vegetables are the star – not the masala. We minimise the use of oil, salt and spices to let the vegetable shine through.Each vegetable, by nature, has a different flavour, colour, texture and taste. This is retained by flash cooking. So each dish, by default, tastes different, even if the same masala is used !In OPOS, we work with nature. She has already done most of our work for us.”

What did I cook all these days, you ask? Or rather what was I OPOSing? Or how was I opposing the traditional way of cooking?